


Operation: Befriend Junhoe

by greyskieslatenights



Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: Gen, Mostly Comedy, a wee bit of angst, aggressive friendship, and junhoe is having None Of It, bobby just really wants to be junhoe's friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 21:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16961661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyskieslatenights/pseuds/greyskieslatenights
Summary: Bobby tries to find out the secret to (platonically) unlocking Junhoe’s heart, but every step forward sends him two back.





	Operation: Befriend Junhoe

**Author's Note:**

> does anyone use the platonic relationship tags anymore lol?? no one?? just me??
> 
> anyway. this fic is truly absolute nonsense. literally 11k of bobby trying to be friends with junhoe, who doesn't know what the fuck to do with him. features some gratuitous interpretation of pre-canon and canon events.
> 
> originally posted 8/4/15; edited slightly for better canon compliance.

1.

When Bobby first finds out that a fourth trainee is going to join their ragtag group of Kims, he’s a little anxious.

(A little would be an understatement – all three of them are incredibly nervous, and somehow the combined worry has turned all of them into complete wrecks. Even Jinhwan, usually their solid rock in these sorts of situations, is anxious. They’ve all been together, just the three of them, for two years – how’s a new kid going to fit in?)

They don’t know much about him – only that his name is Junhoe, he’s younger than all of them (Hanbin’s pleased, of course – eager for someone else they can pick on), and specializes in vocals and dance.

The three of them are sitting in one of YG’s conference rooms in stony silence, waiting, when the door opens.

The first thing that Bobby notices about the new kid is his height. Even though they’re all sitting, Bobby can tell that the new kid is at least his height, if not taller. Hanbin’s gonna be pissed.

“I’m Koo Junhoe. I’m fourteen, and I sing and dance. ‘s nice to meet you.”

Junhoe bows, his face settling into an expression that Bobby can only describe as mildly displeased when he straightens back up (although it might just be his eyebrows, Bobby thinks.)

“I’m Kim Jinhwan, and I’m eighteen,” the oldest introduces, standing up and extending a hand toward Junhoe. “I was the only singer in this group, ‘til you came.”

Hanbin stands up, too, and reaches out after Junhoe’s done greeting Jinhwan. Bobby can see that he’s got an assertive handshake – like he knows what he wants, and knows he’s going to get it.

“Kim Hanbin, sixteen. I’m the leader, sort of. I rap, compose, write lyrics, and choreograph.”

“You do all that, and you still can’t find a pair of scissors?” Bobby hears Junhoe mutter, shooting a glance at Hanbin’s fitted before he turns to greet the final person in the room. Bobby fixes a smile on his face, and sticks out his hand.

“My name’s Kim Jiwon, but you can call me Bobby. No one calls me Jiwon except my mom, pretty much. I’m seventeen, and I’m kinda like Hanbin, except I don’t dance too well.”

Junhoe raises an eyebrow as he shakes Bobby’s hand (he was right about the assertive thing). “Are you foreign? Or do you just have an English name for fun?”

Jinhwan chuckles nervously.

“I lived in America for a few years before coming here,” Bobby says, “it was easier to use an English name, and I kinda like it better, anyways. Makes me different.”

Junhoe says nothing, but Bobby gets the distinct feeling that Junhoe’s judging him and all his life choices. It’s not a feeling he’s unfamiliar with, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t unnerving.

“So what happens now?” Junhoe asks, “Apparently I’m living with you guys?”

“Ah…” Bobby mutters. He’d completely forgotten about that. The three of them had lived in a dorm meant for four, and they liked each other enough that they shared one bedroom between them, but he could see how this would cause problems. Namely, Hanbin’s ego wouldn’t let the new guy _and_  maknae have a whole room to himself, but the three don’t really want to split up. Granted, it probably  _would_  be more comfortable – there’s only a bunk bed in there, so they rotate between the beds and the floor or sharing, and they’re lucky they’ve already passed the awkward stage of accidentally (or not) touching each other in various stages of undress, but still.

“We’ll show you to the dorm,” Jinhwan says smoothly, shooting Bobby and Hanbin a look that means they need to talk about this later. Hanbin gives the smallest of nods, and they all stand up. Bobby reaches for one of Junhoe’s suitcases, the youngest barely acknowledging him as Jinhwan leads them to the elevator.

The ride is tense. Usually he and Hanbin would be cracking dumb jokes while Jinhwan looks at them fondly, or making up some weird songs about cracks in the sidewalk and flashing lights, but none of them know how to react to Junhoe’s presence in their midst.

“So, Junhoe,” Jinhwan says as they leave the building and approach one of the company vans, “tell us about yourself.”

“Like what?” Junhoe asks, ignoring Bobby’s silent plea for assistance in putting his suitcases in the trunk.

“Y’know, like why’d you decide to come here? Dirty pasts? Hobbies? Anything, really.”

Junhoe climbs into the back with Jinhwan, stretching out so there’s no room for a third. Hanbin shrugs and takes one of the seats in the row in front, and motions for Bobby to do the same.

“I was on K-Pop Star,” Junhoe says, “part of a group. We didn’t make it far, though. We all kinda sucked.”

“Did you meet Lee Hayi?” Hanbin asks, craning his neck over. Bobby and Jinhwan stifle laughs – Hanbin had developed a bit of a crush during his sporadic watching of the show. The finale’s in a few weeks, and Hanbin’s bet them twenty thousand won that Hayi’s going to win.

Junhoe leans back, grinning. “Sat next to her and ate a few times.”

Hanbin groans, and Jinhwan rubs his shoulder. “There there, Hanbin. With any luck, she’ll sign with YG.”

This perks Hanbin right up again, and Bobby catches Junhoe rolling his eyes. At least he’s already clued in to the fact that Hanbin’s a complete loser.

“I was on Star King a couple of years ago, too,” Junhoe says, “dancing to Michael Jackson.”

“You must be good, then,” Jinhwan says, and Junhoe grins.

“I’ll show you at our first practice, hyung.”

“You like Michael Jackson?” Jinhwan asks.

Junhoe nods. “I have almost all his albums. He’s such a great singer, and his dances are top-notch. I haven’t seen anyone more influential than him yet.”

“I like him, too,” Bobby says, eager to jump into the conversation.

“That’s nice,” Junhoe replies, “any particular song?”

“Uh, Thriller is pretty good.”

Bobby can almost hear Junhoe scoff as he turns to face Jinhwan again.

“What about you, hyung?”

Bobby slumps down in his seat, feeling completely and utterly rejected as Jinhwan starts talking about some Michael Jackson B-side he’s never heard of in his life, easily seguing into his own favorite musicians.

“There there,” Hanbin says, a poor imitation of Jinhwan, “you’ll get your chance, hyung.”

 

2.

Junhoe’s still talking to Jinhwan when the van pulls up in front of their dorm, pulling out his luggage. He doesn’t let Jinhwan help him, rebuffed with a “no, hyung, I can handle it,” instead of Bobby’s forced servitude.

“Nice place,” Junhoe says as Hanbin flicks on the light and they take off their shoes. It’s a bit of a mess – bowls from breakfast still on the table, and dirty clothes strewn about, but it’s nothing less than one would expect from a group of teenage boys.

“You can take this room,” Jinhwan says, leading him to the unused one. “You can set up, unpack and stuff. I gotta talk to these guys.”

Junhoe nods, taking his luggage in. Once the door closes, Jinhwan grabs Hanbin and Bobby and drags them to their room, closing the door behind them.

“So what do we think,” he says, sitting on his bed. Bobby sits on the floor, Hanbin next to him, and takes out his Pooh.

Hanbin shrugs. “Seems like a decent kid. Got some talent, obviously, if he’s been on TV before. Who’s gonna room with him?”

“I think I should,” Jinhwan says, shushing Bobby before he can protest. “He seems to like me the best.”

“You mean he doesn’t like either of us,” Bobby says.

Jinhwan sighs. “Don’t say that. He’s probably just overwhelmed, he’ll warm up to you. You’re friendly enough.”

“I guess.” Bobby’s not entirely convinced, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try.

“So it’s settled, then?” Jinhwan asks. “I’ll probably leave most of my stuff here, it’s kind of a bother to move everything. But I’ll sleep over there. It’ll be nice for a change, y’know?”

He gets up to go next door, and Bobby hears him knock on the door before going in.

There’s gonna be a lot of knocking, Bobby sighs to himself. Lots of re-setting and re-pushing boundaries.

They splurge a bit for dinner that night, buying a pack of meat at the grocery store and grilling it up. Hanbin gets shafted to cooking duty, “for the last time,” he vows, prodding the pork in the pan.

Dinner, too, is in relative silence, save for the sounds of eating. For once, Bobby thinks, Jinhwan doesn’t have to admonish either of them for talking with their mouths full, but he almost misses the oldest’s nagging.

“We start group practice tomorrow,” Hanbin says, breaking the silence as he wraps some meat in lettuce. “We’ll have to test you a bit, first, though. To see what you’ve got and need to work on.”

“Sounds fine,” Junhoe replies through a mouthful of meat. “Anything else I should know?”

Hanbin shrugs. “Not really. We usually spend each month practicing for the monthly evaluation – you know about that right?” He looks up at Junhoe, who nods. “Yeah. Sajangnim’s letting us skip the one at the end of this month since you just joined, but we’re gonna start prepping for the next one soon. Pretty straightforward, one song, one dance, so we’ll probably spend a few days picking it out next week.”

Junhoe nods, returning to his food, and the conversation dies again. Bobby decides to amuse himself by making faces at Jinhwan across the table, earning him a kick to the shin.

Junhoe helps Jinhwan clear the table when they’re done, Jinhwan shooting Bobby a very pointed look when he tries to assist (really, it’s not his fault that every time he does the dishes it ends up in a water fight).

Bobby sighs, retreating to the bathroom to wash up for bed. He takes a few extra minutes in the shower, pondering over the day’s events and wondering just how Junhoe’s going to fare in training. Hanbin’s notoriously tough, so Junhoe’d better be something special to hold up.

Hanbin enters their room, a towel draped over his wet hair. He nods once to Bobby, then sits down next to Bobby on his bunk.

“’s weird,” Hanbin mutters, and Bobby hums his assent, letting Hanbin lean on him, wet towel scratching his shoulder.

“At least we won’t trip over Jinhwan in the morning anymore,” Bobby says, and he feels Hanbin nod, but it’s a bit forlorn.

First days are always the hardest.

 

To everyone’s surprise, Junhoe is, to put it simply, fucking  _beast._

They went through vocals first, their trainer asking Junhoe to sing anything he wanted without a backtrack. He goes for an English R&B song that Bobby thinks is familiar but can’t quite recall, clearing his throat and readying himself.

And he just goes.

His voice is completely different that Jinhwan’s – deeper, huskier, more powerful. It’s raw and unpolished, but there’s something undeniably pulling about it. Bobby’s no vocal expert, but he knows something good when he sees it.

Then there was the dance.

No sooner had Hanbin put on the music than Junhoe went hard, bobbing his body for a few beats before breaking out into something so smooth and powerful that Bobby swore had to have been pre-choreographed.

Hanbin stops the music when the song ends, eyes wide as he voices exactly what the other two are thinking: “You’ve done that before, right?”

“Well,” Junhoe replies, breathless as he smooths back his sweat-dampened bangs, “I’m familiar with the song, but I can’t say I’ve ever done a complete choreo for it… bits and pieces, I guess.”

“You’re good,” Hanbin says, half to himself, “a different style than me, but way better than Bobby-hyung.”

“Hey!” Bobby protests half-heartedly, but he’s not offended. He’s a perfectly competent dancer (although Hanbin tells him he tends to be half a beat behind), but he’s nothing spectacular.

“We’ll need to work on a couple of things, tighten up your moves,” Hanbin says, tapping his chin with a pen, “but there isn’t really a whole lot I need to do with you.”

“Oh,” Junhoe says, trying his best to sound nonchalant, but Bobby can tell he sounds pleased with himself, “that’s cool.”

They spend the rest of practice going over choreography that Hanbin’s either thought up at some unholy hour of the night or found off the internet. Bobby kind of wants to die, and Jinhwan’s not much better off, but Junhoe’s got this almost-angry expression on his face that Bobby’s not sure how to read.

Hanbin finally calls for the end of practice, and Bobby sets about to making himself one with the floor.

“Hyung, what can I do?”

Bobby stares up at Junhoe. “What?”

“You know,” Junhoe says, wiping at his forehead with the hem of his shirt, “so I can get better?”

Bobby’s not entirely sure how to answer this. “Um… just keep practicing?”

Junhoe rolls his eyes and runs over to Jinhwan, presumably to ask the same question. Jinhwan, at least, seems more inclined to humor him, ruffling his hair and leaving the practice room with him.

A face invades his field of vision – Hanbin.

“Get up,” he says, throwing a towel over Bobby, “you look disgusting.”

“No more than you,” Bobby jokes. He pulls the towel off his face and accepts Hanbin’s outstretched hand with his empty one, rising laboriously to his feet.

“What do you think of him?” Hanbin asks. It’s obvious who he’s talking about, even without mentioning the name.

“Does it really matter what I think?” Bobby laughs, wrapping the towel around his shoulders as he follows Hanbin out of the room. “Your heart of stone has finally been moved.”

“I do not have a heart of stone,” Hanbin retorts.

“Right, I forgot about your tendency to fall for any girl who looks at you for more than five seconds. You might want to fix that if we’re gonna become teenage heartthrobs, y’know? Can’t go around falling for everyone.”

“I  _hate_  you,” Hanbin groans, “Can we just keep Junhoe?”

The two of them have almost caught up with Jinhwan and Junhoe – the two of them are pressed close together, sharing a pair of earbuds. Bobby seriously wants to know what kind of overnight witchcraft Jinhwan worked on Junhoe.

“If you can teach Junhoe how to rap,” Bobby says, “go ahead and send me back to Virginia.”

Junhoe turns around at the sound of his name, eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you  _want_  me to learn how to rap? I could, if you want. Would that make me better?”

Junhoe asks this with so much seriousness that Bobby starts laughing. “Kid, knock yourself out.”

 

Bobby had forgotten all about his offhand comment a few hours later, which is why he’s incredibly confused when Junhoe sits the three of them down after practice two days later, then proceeds to spit out eight bars of Common’s Blue Sky.

Jinhwan claps enthusiastically, Hanbin looks more than a little dumbfounded, and Bobby himself—

Well, he laughs.

Very loudly.

So much, in fact, that he falls over backwards with a loud  _thud._  Hanbin automatically turns toward him, shaking his head in a mixture of exasperation and fondness that seems to follow almost everything Bobby does. Jinhwan reaches out for him, but abruptly jumps to his feet and runs out of the room.

Junhoe doesn’t talk to Bobby for the rest of the day.

 

3.

A week and a half later, another trainee, Song Yunhyeong, joins them. Personality-wise, he assimilates much better than Junhoe had – he’s relatively agreeable, and takes to caring for them in a different way than Jinhwan does, despite he himself being in an unfamiliar environment. It’s kind of nice, Bobby thinks, to have another older member around.

(It’s also great to have Jinhwan back in the room; the second bedroom has since been dubbed the newbie room, and Yunhyeong shoved in with Junhoe. Bobby hopes the older comes out unscathed. He likes him.)

Unfortunately, they’re starting from ground zero with him.

“I originally joined for acting,” he tells them sheepishly, “but sajangnim said I should join you guys.”

Jinhwan lets out a long sigh, and Hanbin looks a bit annoyed, but they agree to start training him hardcore in vocals and dance.

This arrangement ends up leaving Bobby and Junhoe alone together quite often.

Much to Bobby’s dismay, the youngest is still an enigma to him. Sure, they’ve learned some of each other’s likes and dislikes and the general outlines of habits, but Junhoe still isn’t  _open_  with him, no matter how hard he tries. The furthest they’ve gotten is dropping honorifics, but Bobby suspects that Junhoe just wanted any excuse he could to not have to show extra respect.

It’s weird – Bobby likes to think of himself as a relatively friendly and well-liked person, but Junhoe seems hell-bent on ignoring his existence (and Hanbin’s, really), primarily talking to Jinhwan and occasionally Yunhyeong.

And thus begins Bobby’s mission: Operation Befriend Junhoe.

(“You know if you keep calling it ‘Operation BJ’ it sounds like you want to suck his dick?”

“Shut up, Hanbin.”)

“Hey,” Bobby says, as he plops down on the sofa next to Junhoe, who’s attached to his iPad. “Looks like it’s just us again.”

Junhoe moves over a centimeter away from Bobby, eyes still fixed on the screen. “Yep.”

“Alone together.”

Bobby says this a bit more suggestively than he probably should, and Junhoe jerks up, narrowing his eyes at him. “What?”

“Not like that!” Bobby laughs.

Junhoe does not look amused.

They’re off to an excellent start.

Bobby coughs, running a hand through his hair and smiling in what he hopes is a reassuring fashion. “Do you wanna do something? Like, I dunno, go to a movie.”

Junhoe raises an eyebrow. “You want to sit next to me in a dark room in silence for two hours?”

Well, when he puts it  _that_  way, of course it sounds terrible. “Wanna, uh, play some video games?”

Junhoe goes back to scrolling on his tablet, but he seems at least slightly inclined to humor Bobby. “What do you have?”

“Well, I have Pokémon Diamond, I can steal Jinhwan-hyung’s Pearl, but I dunno if his team’s any good, or if you want console games I have GTA 4, Call of Duty Black Ops, Mario Party 8, Brawl—are you even listening?”

Bobby stops mid-list, glancing to the side as Junhoe’s in the middle of sticking his earbuds in his ears.

“Hm?” Junhoe looks mildly irritated. “I guess we can play a round of COD.”

“Excellent.”

Bobby boots up the console and inserts the disk, tossing Junhoe a controller.

“I don’t need to teach you how to play, right?”

Junhoe scoffs. “Please.”

And it begins.

Bobby’s initially nervous about how this game would end up, especially given that it’s, well, a shooting game, and Junhoe shooting him in the back is a very real possibility, but the arrangement works out oddly well – Junhoe is madly competitive, and plows through the enemies like a maniac, pairing well with Bobby’s own erratic style. He – dare he say – likes it more than playing with Hanbin, who’s always far too meticulous and gets shot ten seconds in, or Jinhwan, who flinches every time he has to shoot or someone else gets shot.

When the others return home that evening, it’s to a strange sight indeed.

“Get my back, Junhoe!” Bobby yells, leaping off the sofa as he mashes buttons on his controller. Junhoe’s eyebrows furrow with intensity as he stares at the screen, muttering low oaths under his breath as he shoots away. They shoot through enemies, and Bobby thinks they might actually beat this level this time, but—

“Hanbin, look,” Jinhwan says, perhaps a touch too loud, “they’ve  _bonded_.”

Junhoe looks up, noticing the trio standing in the doorway. He drops his controller, looks between himself and Bobby, and immediately runs off to his room, leaving Bobby behind to get shot in the back.

“Jinhwan-hyung!” Bobby moans, as the words  _GAME OVER_  flash on the screen, “We were doing so well!”

Jinhwan looks like he’s torn between laughing and crying, and ends up making a weird gasping sound before collapsing to the floor and rolling around.

“He’s lost it,” Hanbin says, but he’s no better, laughter bowing his body down until he’s next to Jinhwan on the floor.

Yunhyeong looks between the two on the floor and at Bobby, completely lost and probably regretting a lot of his life choices.

Bobby contemplates suffocating himself with a pillow.

Junhoe doesn’t talk to Bobby for a full two weeks after that.

 

4.

When Donghyuk joins later that year, it’s the best thing ever, in Bobby’s opinion – he’s finally got a cute dongsaeng who really,  _genuinely_  likes him (Junhoe doesn’t think it’s possible, raising an eyebrow whenever Donghyuk leaves his side to talk to Bobby).

Once again, though, this leaves Bobby and Junhoe alone together quite often. Similarly to Junhoe, and unlike Yunhyeong when he first joined, Donghyuk’s already pretty good at singing and dancing. Since his vocal range is much more similar to Jinhwan’s, though, they tend to have practices together.

While Bobby wouldn’t say Junhoe’d warmed up to him much over the past few months, he can say that they’re at least marginally more comfortable in each other’s presence.

Generally, this means that they can sit on opposite ends of the sofa and not antagonize each other.

But Bobby’s still not satisfied – he really does want to be friends with Junhoe, especially since it seems they’ll be spending a good chunk of the next few years with each other.

He’s lying on the couch, watching television, when he hears the door opening. He looks up to see Junhoe sliding out the door, trying to open it as little as possible and as quietly as he can.

“Hey,” Bobby says, “Junhoe, whatcha doing?”

Junhoe curses. “Going out.”

“What for?”                    

“Shopping.”

“For what?”

Junhoe glares, but Bobby’s used to that by now. “Does it matter?”

“Did it occur to you that maybe I want to come?”

“Did it occur to you that maybe I don’t want you to come?”

Bobby shrugs, and grins. “Not really, hold up.”

Surprisingly, Bobby’s actually wearing clothes, so he can run and grab his wallet off the kitchen counter before Junhoe can slam the door in his face and run away.

Junhoe scowls when Bobby catches up to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, were you really going to leave your hyung like that?”

“Yeah.”

Junhoe turns to stare out the window, eyebrows set resolutely over narrowed eyes.

“So what’re you gonna get?” Bobby asks, attempting to make some kind of casual conversation.

“Does it really matter?” Junhoe sighs.

“Hey, just curious,” Bobby chuckles, elbowing Junhoe in the ribs. Junhoe shoots him a glare and mutters under his breath that “if he really wants to find out, he’ll just have to wait and see.”

Bobby grins madly, following Junhoe as he gets off at the mall and heads towards a department store.

“Is it clothes?” Bobby asks as they near the men’s section.

“You could say that,” Junhoe grumbles, turning a corner into the underwear section.

Bobby’s lips pop open into an  _O_ , eyes widening. No wonder Junhoe didn’t want to tell him – but no matter. He’s always found underwear shopping incredibly amusing, and a great way to bond with people.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Junhoe feels the same way, as he stands in the aisle with a package of black (ever since Jinhwan had roundly mocked Junhoe's lack of color-coordination skills, the boy seemed to wear nothing other than that color) boxer briefs and an increasingly pained look on his face.

“Junhoe,  _look_ , these have bacon on them!”

“Oh god, Junhoe, you have to see this, there’s boobs on these, oh god.”

“Should I buy these for Hanbin? Junhoe—”

Bobby looks up from the pair of bikini-clad women-printed underwear he’s holding, only to see an empty space where Junhoe once stood and a familiar figure sprinting away from him towards the cash registers.

“Yah! Koo Junhoe!”

He finally catches up to Junhoe just as the youngest is about to slip onto a bus, holding the door open with one hand and wheezing while Junhoe shoots him one of the dirtiest looks known to mankind.

“Hey, you almost left hyung behind,” Bobby gasps out as he taps his T-Money card on the reader, “how could you?”

“Just like that,” Junhoe says, lips pressing into a thin line as he reaches up to hold the bar.

The rest of the day is spent in stony silence and many slammed doors from Junhoe.

(“Is he always like this?” Donghyuk whispers across the dinner table once Junhoe’s left, glancing fearfully at his retreating back.

“Nah,” Bobby replies, shoving more chicken into his mouth, “he just likes being a drama queen.”

“Shut up, Kim Jiwon!”

“You’re not my mother! Don’t tell me what to do! And don’t call me that!”

Jinhwan rolls his eyes.)

A week later, Bobby walks into the kitchen wearing just his underwear.

This is normal.

Once Junhoe catches sight of him, he drops his bowl, and points, arm shaking.

This is not.

“YOU. ARE. WEARING. MY. UNDERWEAR.”

Bobby glances down and laughs. “Oh, I was wondering why they felt different. New. Fresh.”

Junhoe looks like he’s going to have a heart attack. For some reason, Bobby sees this as a great time to make an inappropriate remark.

“You know, we indirectly touched dicks!”

Junhoe lets out an unearthly battle cry, lunging towards him, punch missing his face by less than a centimeter. It takes the combined efforts of all the other members to hold him back so he doesn’t rip Bobby’s head off.

This is the first time Bobby has really and truly feared for his life.

 

5.

Bobby’s exhausted.

They’re all exhausted.

This is the first time Bobby’s been on camera for an extended period of time, the first time his each and every action has been up for public scrutiny, and he can’t say he particularly enjoys it.

But he knows what he signed up for, even if it’s not exactly how he imagined it.

So it triggers no alarm when the six of them pile into a van with cameras in it, driving off to some studio or other where they’re going to try on their outfits for their performance.

(It’s kind of exciting, really, the fact that they might actually debut at the end of this. They’ll finally be able to perform for more people,  _fans_ , instead of just sajangnim and other people from the company. Probably a lot less nervewracking, too.)

Bobby glances at Yunhyeong next to him, who’s making some weird pantomime gestures into the camera, but thinks nothing of it.

Until the surrounding area starts looking less like the wardrobe studio and a lot more like…

“Hey, isn’t Yunhyeong’s parents’ place around here?” Jinhwan asks.

Bobby cranes his neck up from his seat in the back, and Hanbin starts laughing.

“There’s a fitting place around here?”

“There is,” Yunhyeong says, but there’s a little too much laughter in his voice to be convincing. “Oh, but there’s my dad over there.”

“What is this!” Bobby yells, but he’s not angry, not by a long shot.

It’s raining as they get out of the van, but everyone’s too excited to care. Hanbin, always quick on the uptake, asks if they’re really doing the wardrobe check at the restaurant. Bobby’s too far back to sock him on the head.

Bobby’s head pangs a little when he sees Yunhyeong embracing his parents – he’s been without his own family for years. But he also thinks distance means little if you never get to see them anyways.

(He’s got his own weird little family now though, right? Jinhwan the mother figure who looks like a child, Hanbin the old man in a teenager’s body, Yunhyeong the pseudo-normal one, Donghyuk the little brother he’d always wanted, and Junhoe…

Well, maybe he’s the pet or something.)

They set off to grilling the meat immediately, and Bobby wonders if Yunhyeong’s parents really took into account how much meat it took to feed six teenage boys as he watches Hanbin and Junhoe eat like the world’s ending.

Just as Bobby decides to  _ask_  Junhoe if he thinks the meat will vanish if he stops eating, Junhoe exchanges a glance with Yunhyeong and pushes himself back from the table.

“Where’s he going?” Hanbin asks. Yunhyeong shrugs.

Junhoe emerges a few minutes later with a cake in his hands and the most awkward smile known to man on his face. He sets it down in the middle of the table, and Bobby, Jinhwan, and Hanbin spend so long gawking at it that candle wax starts running down the cake.

“Blow out the candles,” Yunhyeong says, as Donghyuk counts to three. They do, but Bobby can tell that Jinhwan and Hanbin are still just as confused as he is as to why this whole… thing’s been arranged.

“Is it some kind of special day?” he asks.

Yunhyeong clears his throat. “The three of us… we would never have made it without the three of you.”

“Why are you being like this,” Jinhwan says, and Bobby and Hanbin follow, trying to play it off.

“Even though it’s not much, we wrote letters for you guys.”

It’s so fucking  _cheesy¸_  but there go the waterworks, as Yunhyeong opens with his letter to Jinhwan. He gets choked up near the end, which sets Jinhwan off, which sets all of them off (although some are better at hiding it than others), and Donghyuk’s only barely able to eke out his letter for Hanbin.

It’s the most touching thing anyone’s done for them, Bobby thinks, but somehow, his attention is drawn to Junhoe sitting across from him – the youngest is barely misty-eyed, and although he has something folded in his hand, he makes no effort to do anything with it after Donghyuk’s finished.

Jinhwan and Hanbin thank Yunhyeong and Donghyuk, and they eat the cake, but it’s still bothering Bobby. Sure, he and Junhoe aren’t the best of friends, but… surely he’s got something to say, right?

“Hey,” he says, nudging Junhoe as they leave the restaurant, “where’s my letter?”

“Hm?” Junhoe looks at him, eyebrow raised. “What letter?”

“Yunhyeong and Donghyukkie wrote them for Jinhwan-hyung and Hanbin, don’t I get anything?”

Junhoe scoffs. “Oh, that. No.”

“Why not? Aren’t you grateful to hyung?” Bobby whines, shaking his body. Junhoe grimaces as he gets inside the car.

“You can’t sing and you can’t dance, what could you have taught me?”

Junhoe has a point.

(Junhoe  _always_  has a point, goddammit.)

(A week later, as he’s emptying the trash, he finds a folded piece of paper. Looking around, he opens it, and it’s covered in scratch-outs and Junhoe’s neat, squared handwriting.

_Bobby- ~~hyung~~_

~~_What am I even supposed to say to you I’m going to kill Yunhyeong later_ ~~

~~_I hate you why did you steal my Michael Jackson CDs I know it was you_ ~~

~~_Did you eat all my chips again_ ~~

~~_I still have that bruise when you whacked me during practice three days ago_ ~~

~~_You’re a fucking maniac_ ~~

_You’re alright I guess. Thanks for being someone I can laugh at._

_-Junhoe_ )

 

6.

None of them take the WIN loss well.

Hanbin’s shut himself off again, Yunhyeong and Donghyuk are alternately morose and self-blaming, Jinhwan’s playing awkward mediator, and Bobby just feels empty.

Junhoe, though, is the most affected of them all.

Outwardly, he projects the same facade as he usually does, albeit a bit weaker – he still laughs obnoxiously whenever someone screws up in practice, defends his spot on the couch with a fiery passion, and makes of a point of stealing most of Bobby’s snacks.

One night, though, Bobby wakes up to use the bathroom, only to hear someone crying inside.

This in itself is not unusual. They all need breaks sometimes, especially now. But Bobby’s pretty certain he knows what all the members’ crying sounds like, and he hasn’t heard this one before.

He knocks on the door – it’s locked.

“Hey, uh,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant, “I kinda need to pee, so.”

The crying stops, and there’s a shuffling sound before the doorknob clicks and the door swings open, revealing a splotchy-faced Junhoe. He tries to push past Bobby, but the rapper holds out an arm across the doorway.

“Hey—June—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, voice thick. “I’m fine. I’m gonna go to bed.”

“This doesn’t look fine to me,” Bobby’s hyung instincts kick in, and he pushes Junhoe inside, closing the toilet lid and sitting down, motioning for Junhoe to sit on the edge of the tub.

“Talk to me,” Bobby says. “I’m no Jinhwan, but I can listen just fine.”

Junhoe buries his face into his hoodie, and Bobby wonders if he’s actually going to say anything.

“There isn’t much to talk about.” Junhoe’s voice is muffled by the fabric. “I’m mad. I’m disappointed. I’m everything but happy, and it’s not supposed to be this way. I know I’m good at what I do. And yeah, I’m not the best, but I’m good. But no one else seems to sees it.”

Not for the first time, Bobby is forced to remember that Donghyuk is not actually their maknae, no matter how much he might act it and how much Junhoe doesn’t. As much as Junhoe acts invincible, he’s not. And Bobby’s sure he’s not the only one that’s noticed that Junhoe tends to get a lot less praise than the rest of them.

A big part of it, he figures, is that Junhoe projects enough self-confidence and assurance that he doesn’t seem in  _need_  of any praise – not like Yunhyeong, who needs constant reminders that he’s improving, and Donghyuk, while in the process of developing his own sense of self, is nowhere near the level Junhoe is.

The rest of it, though, Bobby’s not sure why. If he’s going to be completely honest with himself, he doesn’t give a whole lot of praise directly to Junhoe either, and neither does Hanbin (that honor goes to Jinhwan, who dishes out compliments like the rich houses giving candy on Halloween.)

“Hey, look,” Bobby says, crossing his legs.

Junhoe stares at the floor.

“Alright, don’t look, I know you don’t like my face,” Bobby laughs, “but you’re great, ‘kay? And even though I don’t say it a lot, I love you.”

Junhoe stands up and glares, giving Bobby an extremely firm palm to the shoulder that will probably result in a bruise.

“I,” Junhoe says, “have no need for your love.”

He shuffles away. Bobby makes no move to stop him, smiling fondly after him before remembering that he actually did come in here to take a piss.

The next day at practice, Junhoe refuses to look Bobby directly in the eyes, but afterwards, he slides in next to Donghyuk in the van, leaving his usual position next to Jinhwan vacant. Bobby quirks an eyebrow, and Junhoe gestures with his head towards the seat almost imperceptibly.

Bobby’s not stupid enough to overlook the one bit of mercy Junhoe’s giving him, so he flashes one of his trademark grins and slings an arm around Jinhwan’s neck, scooting in just a little too close for comfort. Junhoe’s face immediately morphs into a murderous expression and he whips around to face the front, sitting stiffly as Donghyuk chatters along next to him.

“What did you do?” Jinhwan whispers playfully, “I thought he was never going to let me go.”

“Magic.” Bobby wiggles his fingers, and Jinhwan rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, right.”

“You’re a wizard, Bobby,” Donghyuk says in a poor impersonation of Hagrid’s voice.

“If anything, he’s a Squib,” Junhoe grumbles.

Bobby just laughs. It’s a good day.

 

7.

Several months pass.

It’s difficult to shift back into the old routine, after all the cameras have been taken away and they no longer have a concrete goal to work for. It takes them a week to drop their public facades when they were alone, a month before Bobby stops catching Hanbin poking around corners for hidden cameras, and longer still for things to return to some semblance of normalcy.

Bobby’s not going to lie to himself; it hurts to see the members of Team A – no, Winner, now. He knows they’re no different people than they had been before – still the same hyungs who’ll pull him into a headlock when he tries to cuddle up with them or have screaming matches with or just being  _them_ , because he’s known them for years, but there’s a distance between them now that he doesn’t know how to bridge.

Because they won.

And he didn’t.

It’s easy to ignore after a while. After the initial feelings fade away and it’s clear that YG isn’t actually going to debut Winner in the near future, the two groups reestablish a tentative camaraderie.

Well, really, it’s just Minho busting into their practice room and yelling “ramyun on Seungyoon!” one day, and while it’s certainly bizarre, cheap food has served as a bonding agent more than once between them.

Bobby thinks he could get used to this again.

Until the six of them get called into sajangnim’s office one morning and come out of it with a new reality show and a new promise of debut – with conditions.

“Of course, I’m not going to tell you everything at once,” he says, and Bobby wants to scream, because this is getting ridiculous, “but we’ll start filming next month. You’ll need to prepare a song for the closing credits, too. Bobby, Hanbin, stay back for another few minutes. The rest of you can leave.”

They come out of the office with appearances on a rap survival show.

“Fuck,” Hanbin says, once they’ve left and the door’s swung shut, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Bobby doesn’t know what else to say other than “you can,” because he knows that even though this new addition will probably be terrible for Hanbin mentally, he  _will_  push through it, one way or another. He’s a tough kid.

That night, he and Hanbin and Jinhwan start working on the song. It’s an arduous process, mostly because most of the stuff he and Hanbin had been making was either not broadcast friendly or super emo-type things that would never see the light of day.

Eventually, though, they pull through, and it’s pretty great, if Bobby does say so himself. It earns a raised eyebrow and a slightly less neutral expression from Junhoe, at any rate, which Bobby has learned means that the youngest has given some modicum of approval

The weeks pass by in a blur of preparations for the show, and before Bobby realizes it, they’re on the set for the music video of sorts for the closing song. It’s nothing fancy, just a black room with some chairs, and they’ll be dressed primarily in black, but there’s an unmistakable energy surrounding the six of them – they’re finally doing  _something_.

There are racks of clothing set out, and they look at the outfits they’ve been assigned. None of them are particularly outlandish, which makes them all relieved (Bobby’s seen some of the things out there, and he can say with certainty that roughly 75% of idol outfits are things that he never wants to touch his body as long as he lives.)

Until Bobby sees The Hat.

He calls it The Hat, because it’s  _special._  It’s big and floppy and honestly kind of weird-looking, but that’s what draws him to it.

“Hey,” he says, prodding Hanbin, “doesn’t this look stupid?”

Hanbin nods, picking up different snapbacks and comparing them. “I don’t think those hats look good on anyone, really.”

A flash of movement catches his eye, and he turns to see Junhoe, another one of The Hats on his head, a frown crossing over his features as soon as he catches sight of Bobby.

“Junhoe!” Bobby yells, “We match!”

Junhoe makes to take the hat off, but the director calls him over, and Bobby knows that if the stylists had planned to have him wear a hat for the video, there’s no way his hair is currently in any presentable state.

This is great.

Junhoe shoots him borderline murderous looks as they take their places for the filming. No one tells Bobby to take the hat off, much to his surprise, although Donghyuk does make an offhand comment about it not matching too well with the rest of his outfit.

The filming goes without any major incidents, at least. They film it five times with different angles and cameras and things that Bobby aren’t actually sure what they are, but what he does know is they’re all starting to get a little sick of the song. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, since listening to the same song in different iterations for hours and days on end can really do a number on you, but it’s different from making it or being in the practice room.

Frankly, his jaw kind of hurts from over-enunciating so the camera will catch it.

Finally, the director calls the end of the filming, and the minute they’ve all finished bowing and thanking everyone, Junhoe rips the hat off, dumps it on the nearest outfit table, and stalks off somewhere (“probably to sulk,” Donghyuk quips, “that was an ugly hat.”)

Bobby just laughs, because there’s now a video of him and Junhoe in borderline couple clothing, immortalized eternally.

(It really is a stupid hat, Bobby realizes, once they’re shown the finished video, but he does think Junhoe should be grateful that they at least look stupid together.

“You always look stupid, though,” Junhoe replies when Bobby tells him that.)

 

8.

In retrospect, this really made perfect sense, in a weird, backwards, twisted kind of way.

Since their group didn’t win, there was clearly something wrong with them. A deficit, perhaps.

A deficit that sajangnim decided to fill by tossing two more members in.

When they first walk into the practice room, Bobby finds it extremely difficult to keep his face in a neutral expression, and he’s pretty sure the rest of them feel the same way.

He knows these kids haven’t done anything wrong, didn’t ask for this, but he can’t help but instinctively pin them as the enemy.

The original six – Team B – have been together for over a year, now. They’ve practically grown up together, like a weird and extremely dysfunctional family.  So to throw two complete strangers – Jung Chanwoo and Jung Jinhyeong – into the mix… is completely unnerving.

Although Bobby’s not particularly inclined to like them at first, he at least wants to get to know them before passing judgements. They’re probably scared, too, so he fixes a smile on his face and greets them.

(He also knows that unless he does it, no one else will say anything – besides Donghyuk, he’s the most open to new people and new situations by a long shot. There’s also the seniority aspect to consider – since Hanbin is probably breaking down internally, and Jinhwan’s not much of a confrontationist in these situations, the duty naturally falls to him.)

Once sajangnim leaves the room, the eight of them become visibly more relaxed, but not by much. The cameras are still there, at any rate, and they’re still strangers.

The introductions are awkward, to say the least. Hanbin is short and stilted, and in Bobby’s opinion really sells himself too short; Donghyuk at least understands their situation more, but there’s still a huge disconnect; and Jinhwan and Junhoe’s are equally unrevealing.

At least him and Yunhyeong bring a bit of brevity at the end – Bobby’s always liked a physical aspect to introductions and finds them incredibly useful for bonding, and when Yunhyeong points out that Chanwoo bears more than just a passing resemblance to him, all bets are off.

And so they adapt.

It’s little changes, at first, like the new bunk beds in the living room, and longer time spent in the bathrooms before leaving, but it’s less horrible than Bobby had expected.

One thing that Bobby does notice, though, is that with the addition of the two new members, it’s even easier for Junhoe to avoid him.

Bobby has to admit that the newest members add a bit of novelty into their lives, and he takes to teasing the two of them instead of Junhoe. Junhoe, too, seems grateful to finally have members younger than him that he can pick on, but he’s never outright spiteful to them like he was to Bobby.

Bobby’s still not sure what he did wrong, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try and get to the bottom of this.

The opportunity comes sooner than he expects.

“We should do something,” Jinhwan says, leaning back on one of the chairs in the practice room.

“Like what?” Hanbin asks, only half paying attention as he fiddles with the track he’s editing for their upcoming mission, “go eat or something?”

“More than that,” Jinhwan sighs, “think bigger, Hanbin-ah.”

“We should go camping,” Bobby says. “Camping is fun. Very manly.”

“Camping has bugs,” Hanbin grumbles, exiting the program, “I hate bugs.”

Bobby rolls his eyes. “Don’t be so fussy. Where’s your sense of adventure, city boy?”

“You weren’t raised in the wild, hyung, shut up.”

“I was raised in the wild lands of America,” Bobby says, rising from his chair and gesturing vaguely above him, “where the people are naturally blond and speak English all day.”

Jinhwan laughs, shaking his head fondly, while Hanbin rolls his eyes, but Bobby knows he’s laughing on the inside.

“Camping sounds fun, though,” Jinhwan muses, “nothing like suffering together to bring people together.”

“We’re already suffering together,” Hanbin gripes, but the three of them start to plan it.

It’s surprisingly easy to bring sajangnim on board with the plan – of course, it has to be filmed, and it can’t last for more than three days but those are only mild complaints, really.

The hardest part is keeping it a secret from the other five.

Junhoe is almost scarily perceptive when he wants to be, and notices a difference in mood immediately when the three of them come back to the dorm later that night. Bobby knows this because he immediately drags Jinhwan off, presumably to interrogate him.

Luckily, the secret does not leak.

It’s harder, though, to convince everyone to pack for a several day trip and get on a bus without revealing exactly what’s going on, but they do manage it through a good deal of coercion and promises that “it’ll be a great surprise, don’t worry.”

When they finally do get to the campsite, though, and Bobby and Hanbin unfurl the banner, it’s one of the best feelings in the world to see the rest of the members so happy for the first time in a while.

All of them except Junhoe, of course, who looks mildly displeased with something, but that’s normal. Bobby’s pretty sure he’s happy on the inside.

And thus, the Great Teamwork Retreat of 2014 begins.

Of course, they have to start with a manly display of sportsmanship, and end up deciding to play foot volleyball. Bobby somehow ends up with Junhoe on his team, but the latter doesn’t seem to care much – the real goal was not to be on the same team as Hanbin, who’s notoriously bad when it comes to certain sports.

Next come the water activities, which involve them zipping around a lake on a floating raft-thing attached to a boat at ridiculously high speeds, but it’s exhilarating in a way Bobby’s never felt before. Hanbin, of course, freaks out, because he’s secretly a wimp, but it’s amusing to watch.

(Bobby’s sure that the highlight of the day, of course, is when he falls off one of the boat-things, and Junhoe laughs uproariously.)

As they wind down with dinner around the campfire, Bobby’s feeling pretty good about things.

That is, of course until Jinhwan decides that they should sleep in the tent with the person they’re the most awkward with.

“Awkward according to who?” Bobby asks immediately, because he’s got a pretty good idea of who they’d pick for him, and he’s not sure if he’d trust him while he’s sleeping.

“We don’t have people like that in our team,” Junhoe protests, and just like that he and Bobby are nominated to share a tent.

“We’re close!” they protest, but Jinhwan and Hanbin, those horrible people, simply view it as amusement.

Once they’ve all separated into pairs and have started setting up for the night, Bobby watches Junhoe make a beeline for Jinhwan in an obvious attempt to try and switch. Bobby’s mildly offended by this, but would also much rather spend the night with Donghyuk or Jinhwan.

Of course, Jinhwan runs off with Donghyuk, leaving Bobby and Junhoe to laugh awkwardly and try to interact as little as possible.

Somehow, this ends up with Bobby plucking absently at his guitar while Junhoe stares off into the distance, the air punctuated by Hanbin’s screams. Either Jinhyeong’s torturing him, or there’s a bug in the tent. It’s probably the latter, but Bobby thinks Junhoe’s hoping for the former.

They finally get ready for bed, and Bobby sets down the electric bug swatter down on the mat beside him.

“At least we have you between me and Junhoe,” he says, only half-joking. Junhoe picks it up and turns it on, turning it over in his hand, and Bobby wonders for a moment if Junhoe would actually zap him with it. It’s not the most painful thing in the world, but it’s by no means pleasant.

“The other members are probably having heart-to-heart conversations right about now,” Bobby says as they lie down and turn off the lights. “Should we?”

“No.”

And that’s the end of that.

 

9.

There’s a cold making its way around the trainees, and the eight are, unfortunately, no exception.

It strikes Junhoe first, to the point where he’s left bedridden for several days with a fever.

“I’m fine, hyung,” he’d protested the first two days, pushing himself out of bed and to the practice rooms, but it was clear that he couldn’t hold up, and was forcibly made to stay in bed through the combined efforts of Jinhwan’s cajoling and a thinly veiled threat from Hanbin.

Junhoe makes sure to complain the entire time – the group chat is always bombarded with random messages about him being bored, and he insists that Jinhwan or Donghyuk give him a play-by-play when they get back to the dorm every night. Bobby thinks Junhoe needs to take a major chill pill, but also understands that Junhoe is simply a perfectionist and hates falling behind.

He can respect that, at least.

(He also thinks that Junhoe really has nothing to worry about, but he knows if he told that to Junhoe directly he’d earn himself a snot-laden tissue to the face and a scoff, after which Junhoe would frantically ask for a second opinion from Jinhwan. Bobby will pretend that this blatant disregard of his feelings doesn’t hurt him, even though it kind of does, and Jinhwan will make him feel better later, too.)

Bobby sneaks into Junhoe’s room before they leave for practice one morning – he’s sound asleep, his normally angled eyebrows flattened out so he looks far less angry than usual.

Junhoe almost looks – dare he say – cute.

He goes to the living room and gets one of the spare blankets, and dampens a small towel in the bathroom, then returns and lays the blanket gently over Junhoe, brushing his bangs away from his forehead and positioning the washcloth.

“Sleep well, June-yah,” Bobby whispers, pecking Junhoe on the cheek in a sudden fit of daring.

Junhoe’s eyes open blearily for a moment, but close right after, and he shifts around under the blankets before his breathing evens out again.

He’ll forget about this in a few hours, Bobby thinks, as he tiptoes out of the room.

Junhoe doesn’t say anything about it when they come back later that night.

Bobby decides that this is as good a time as any to spread his love, since Junhoe’s in no state to shove him off, and he probably won’t remember it anyways.

So Bobby makes sure to give Junhoe a goodbye kiss every time they leave the dorm before Junhoe wakes up. Some days Junhoe stays fast asleep and still, some days he moves around and Bobby almost thinks he’s woken up, but every time is like a little adventure. Kiss the dragon, or something weird like that.

Junhoe recovers a few days later, and Bobby pretends like nothing ever happened. Junhoe makes no move to assault or interrogate him, so Bobby pats himself on the back for a job well done.

(“Are you literally patting yourself on the back? Have you been watching Jinhwan-hyung’s motivational videos again?”

“You could do well with watching some of those, Hanbin. Girls like guys with nice smiles.”

“Oh,  _shut up!_ ”)

A week later, after the cold has finished infecting all of them, they’re finally back as eight in the practice room and dancing to whatever mad version of MTBD Hanbin’s thought up this time.

Hanbin calls a break for water, and Bobby’s just started chugging from his bottle when a hard punch to his right arm causes his grip to falter, water sloshing all over his shirt. He’s already pretty certain who the offender is, and looks to the side to see a positively annoyed Junhoe.

“What was that for?”

“You know  _exactly_  what that was for,” Junhoe hisses. “Don’t you dare do that again.”

(Bobby gets sick two days later. He receives nothing from Junhoe, other than what were probably his germs and a smug declaration of “karma.”)

 

10.

Not for the first time, Bobby’s grateful that YG is a relatively wealthier company.

While he still has trainee debt, he’s at least able to pay it off in style and comfort.

Comfort in this case being a brand new dorm for nine people, with the addition of one Yang Hongseok.

(Bobby’s still not sure how to feel about him, but he hasn’t spent a whole lot of time with him one-on-one either. If Jinhwan and Hanbin are to be believed, though, he’s a more-or-less decent guy, but a bit stand-offish. It’s definitely weird, though, having their maknae in status be the second oldest.)

But of course, YG being YG and reality shows being reality shows, they can’t just move into a new dorm.

They have to make an event out of it.

So the cameras are set up and the boys let loose.

Bobby can’t help but completely flip out. This place is  _nice_  – dark wood furnishing, new appliances, and it’s way bigger than their old dorm. Hell, it might even be bigger than his house. It’s definitely nicer than  _his_ house back in Virginia, and he feels a little guilty for that.

(He’ll definitely bring his family to Korea someday, though. And when he does, he’ll get an even better home for them.)

Once they’ve all gotten their initial kicks in, the game begins. The rules are simple – each member picks a room, but if the room ends up at over capacity, someone’s got to move.

To Bobby’s surprise, the only other person who picks the room he’s in (ironically, the largest one) is Hanbin. He’s immeasurably grateful, for one thing, because it means he’s at least got his best friend in the group here.

After they’ve made their initial choices, they gather in the living room, as Hanbin decides who he wants as their roommate to fill up the third spot and figure out who’s getting booted to the living room.

“You know who,” Hanbin says to Bobby, who nods in reply. It’s gotta be J—

“Junhoe!”

Junhoe claps once, mouth pressed into a thin line, and Bobby’s torn between laughing and crying, because that wasn’t what he was expecting at all.

Once again, he’s a little worried that Junhoe’s going to kill him in the middle of the night (and Hanbin, too, because Junhoe doesn’t really like Hanbin, either), but the first few nights are surprisingly uneventful.

That is, until Bobby slips up one evening and forgets to put clothes on.

Bobby and Junhoe lie on complete opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to bodily modesty – Bobby prefers complete freedom (and by complete, he really does mean complete – underwear is optional), while Junhoe is very firm about always wearing at least a tank top and boxers. Bobby can probably count on one hand the times he’s seen Junhoe without a shirt on if they weren’t changing clothes, and he even does that incredibly quickly.

So while Bobby thinks nothing of lying on his bed in the buff, Junhoe takes one look and screams.

Hanbin bursts in with a wild look in his eyes. “Who died?” he asks, eyes darting between Bobby and Junhoe.

Junhoe says nothing, merely pushing past Hanbin out of the room, and Bobby learns later that Junhoe had spent the night sleeping on the couch, much to the amusement of Yunhyeong and Hongseok.

“Did you really have to scare him off like that?” Jinhwan asks him the next morning as they eat breakfast.

“It was an accident!” Bobby protests, but Jinhwan silences him with a raised eyebrow.

“You should apologize to him, or something,” Jinhwan sighs, “the couch isn’t even big enough for him to completely lie down on.”

That’s got to be a lie, but Jinhwan does kind of have a point.

So Bobby makes a pit stop at the convenience store after practice to buy Junhoe a peace offering of food.

(He does have to text Jinhwan and Donghyuk to ask what kind of food he should get, but in his defense, he had narrowed it down to three options before he asked.)

“What’s this?” Junhoe asks when Bobby presents him with three spicy pork rice balls. “No drink?”

Bobby hears him grumble under his breath as he walks to the kitchen, but he’s pretty sure he catches a glimpse of a smile on Junhoe’s face as he turns away, so he’ll chalk this up to a win.

 

11.

Bobby had had pretty high hopes about this performance, actually.

It had been all of their first times doing a serious collaboration with a female artist, and although Hanna hasn’t officially debuted yet, he still felt like he owed it to her to make it great.

And all in all, he’d thought they had a pretty bangin’ track. He accepts that perhaps he may have come off too strong in their song, but thought that they had done pretty well, all things considered.

(Better than Hanbin’s, at any rate. He loves the guy, but some things should not be touched by trap, and that includes Disney songs. He’ll give him props for innovation, but that’s about it.)

So when the final rankings are called for that round and his team lands in second, he’s kind of disappointed. It’s nothing compared to Jinhwan, who’s already crying because his team lost  _again_ , and Bobby really wants to reach out to their oldest, but he’s got something more immediate to deal with.

And that is, of course, who’s getting put up for elimination in his team. Obviously, it’s gotta be—

“Jung Chanwoo.”

Bobby can see the change in Junhoe’s demeanor instantly, his back stiffening, drawing himself up to his full height as he moves to stand by Yunhyeong and Jinhyeong. The sound of his heartbeat fills his ears, because this is the worst he could have anticipated.

Chanwoo did well, he’s improved so much since he first joined, and Bobby acknowledges that.

But Junhoe…

This isn’t even the final round, but it may just as well be WIN all over again.

“I think this is what you need,” sajangnim says, and while maybe he is right, maybe some of them have gotten a little cocky, Bobby thinks this is one of the worst things a person could do, especially to Junhoe.

He can picture Junhoe’s expression perfectly as he prepares himself to sing and as the words leave his lips – haughty, defiant, daring, his game face on in full force. He doesn’t sound nervous at all, and a strange sort of pride swells up in Bobby’s chest.

This is Koo Junhoe.

This is one of their original six, the first after the Kim trio, and Bobby’ll be damned if he doesn’t make it as a fixed member.

To no one’s surprise, Junhoe is sent back as ‘safe,’ but it doesn’t feel like he’s safe, doesn’t feel like anyone’s safe.

As if on a dazed autopilot, Junhoe walks towards Bobby, who raises his arms up instinctually in a hug. Junhoe’s hold is loose, his breaths ragged, but Bobby keeps him there, tightening his hold when Junhoe starts to pull away, because ego be damned he knows Junhoe is breaking and he needs someone to keep him together.

It’s only the second time he’s seen Junhoe really, truly cry, and it hurts him in a way he never wants to feel again.

Afterwards, they sit in the parking lot and let it out. If anyone who didn’t know them walked in, it really would have looked like some kind of freak show – a third of them are in ski outfits in October, a third are in varying pairings of black and yellow, and a third of them are in clothes four sizes too big. All of them are crying, or at the very least vaguely misty eyed (that would be the newest three – while sure, they’re sad, they haven’t faced this before, not like the other six.)

Bobby wants to reach out to Junhoe again as he crouches by the curb, still in his parka and snow pants, but he hangs back while the other members surround him.

The ride back to the dorm is tense, silence punctuated by the occasional sniffle. The atmosphere continues even after they’ve washed up and retired to their rooms, and Bobby feels stifled. He’s always hated it when the mood gets like this, but he knows that trying to lighten things would only make things worse.

Hanbin’s already snoring when Bobby turns off the light, and he’s just about to drift off when he hears a soft voice from above.

“Bobby-hyung?”

“Junhoe?” Bobby asks, wondering if he was just imagining things.

There is a long silence, then: “Thanks.”

Bobby smiles to himself. “Sleep well, Junhoe.”

He doesn’t get a reply, but he knows that the sentiment is there, all the same.

He sleeps better that night than he has in weeks.

 

12.

It’s been a long few months.

Bobby can’t believe it’s finally come to an end.

All the sweat, all the tears, all the hard work, and it culminates in a faceless audience choosing who they want to be in their group.

(Honestly, out of the three new trainees, he likes Jinhyeong the best, but he thinks he can honestly say he would not be thoroughly displeased with any of them.)

But when the staff presents them with a cap and folded slips of paper and tells them it’s for a Secret Santa exchange, Bobby thinks it may very well be one of the most nerve-wracking things he’s ever done. He can think of more than one member that he either really doesn’t want to get or simply has no idea what to get anything for.

So when he ends up with Jinhwan, he breathes a long sigh of relief. Jinhwan is easy.

The next thought that crosses his mind is who got him, because if Junhoe got him—

Well, he just hopes that if it is in fact Junhoe, he either gets him something broadcast-appropriate or the editors have skill in extreme video manipulation.

The next week is filled with secret shopping trips and covert conversations to try and figure out who got who, but all he’s learned is that Hanbin got Yunhyeong.

(“Easiest gift ever,” Hanbin says, as he sticks ten lip balms in a box and covers them with shredded paper. “When I get a girlfriend, I hope it’s this easy getting her stuff.”

“ _If_  you get a girlfriend, Hanbin.”

“You shut your mouth.”)

The night before their showcase, they all gather on the roof of the company building. Jinhwan plays the world’s tiniest chaebol heir, or something, as he turns around to “present” the spread to them all. It’s cheesy, but Bobby thinks they could all use a little something amusing in their lives right now.

After they eat, they get down to the main event – the gift exchange. Bobby sighs, starting it off with his gift of a Toy Story figurine to Jinhwan, since his box somehow got opened in transit. (Truthfully, he really didn’t seal it too well, but still.)

Hanbin then suggests back-hugging the person who you’re giving the gift to, which elicits a round of groans all around, but Jinhwan goes for it, presenting Hanbin with a pair of Converse. When Hanbin gives his gift to Yunhyeong, the guy is so happy after seeing the contents of the box that you’d think he won the lottery.

Bobby’s surprised with Yunhyeong’s arms around him next – a computer mouse. He’s not going to lie, it wasn’t on his top ten list of things he wanted most or anything, but it’s a perfectly useful and functional gift. At the very least, he’s got Hanbin’s envy, and he’d bet money that Hanbin would end up taking it by the end of the month.

Donghyuk goes next, and ends up shooting himself in the foot with his description about who it was for, but he’s completely right – Junhoe’s probably worn blue jeans less than ten times in the two years that Bobby’s know him. He’s also completely right in the sizing and fit, as evidenced when Junhoe returns after putting them on. Bobby wonders how he does it, really.

To no one’s surprise, Junhoe ends up giving himself away simply due to the fact that it’s nearly impossible for him to touch other people in a close way. He ends up turning bright red, touching Jinhyeong as little as he possibly can, running away, and then giving Jinhyeong the gift almost as an afterthought.

“It better not be earrings,” Bobby says, just as Jinhyeong opens the wrapping to reveal an entire bag of them.

“It’s more than one!” Junhoe argues, and they let him have his quantity over quality this time.

They unintentionally round out the exchange with the three newbies – Jinhyeong gifts Donghyuk with a ring, and Hongseok and Chanwoo exchange equally awkward gifts of a face roller and foreign snacks.

The conversation naturally turns to their inevitable end, reminiscing about the times they’ve had and things they always wanted to say.

“I always wanted to get closer to Junhoe, actually,” Jinhyeong says, “But since we have similar personalities, we never really approached each other. I’m close with the rest of you, but with Junhoe… it’s awkward.”

“He makes everything awkward,” Bobby replies, waving Jinhyeong off, “I’m not close to him either.”

“Why are you saying that?” Junhoe laughs, trying to deflect away from himself.

“We have to lock them in the same room for a week,” Donghyuk jokes. Junhoe looks borderline revolted for a minute.

“I hope you can get closer to him, because he’s a good guy,” Bobby says, trying to get the conversation at least somewhat back on track.

“Listen, I can get close to people if I open my heart, okay?” Junhoe protests.

“Please open your heart to me,” Bobby half-pleads, half laughs.

Junhoe drives in the nail deeper. “Listen, if Jinhyeong joins, I can get close to him in just one day.”

“What about me?” Bobby mock-whines. “I’ve been with you for two years!”

The conversation moves to other topics after that, but it still bothers Bobby throughout the rest of the night.

“Hey,” he asks Junhoe as they clean up and climb down the stairs from the roof, “why aren’t we close, actually?”

Junhoe just stares at him, completely deadpan. “I can’t believe you actually have to ask me that question.”

He walks off, leaving Bobby at the bottom of the stairs with more questions than answers.

Koo Junhoe truly is an enigma, and befriending him seems like a game of chance than anything else.

(It’s a good thing Bobby doesn’t believe in chances, just hard work, right?)

 

+1

When Bobby sees what hat Junhoe’s wearing before they leave for their NEPA press conference, he almost breaks out laughing

The seven of them are notorious for swapping and sharing hats (and almost any other article of clothing, really), but at the end of the day ownership is ownership.

Junhoe is actually wearing one of Bobby’s hats.

“Hey, isn’t that mine?” Bobby asks, once they’ve all gotten in the van.

And if Junhoe hadn’t been sitting away at an impossible angle to hit Bobby from, he might have gotten a whack to the face.

Junhoe has no choice but to wear the hat to the event, because he’s under strict orders to keep his newly-bleached hair under wraps until the official unveiling of their teaser images (Bobby almost can’t believe they’re actually debuting at this point, because it’s been  _so long_ ), and Jinhwan silently refuses to switch.

Once the event is over, though, Junhoe foists the cap into Bobby’s hands and refuses to speak to anyone else until they get back to the dorm.

(Somehow, Bobby’s grateful for this source of constant in his life – no matter what the issue, he can count on Junhoe to reject anything and everything to do with him.

And you know what? He’s okay with that.

He’s still got years to figure the kid out, after all.)

**Author's Note:**

> the hats in question at the end: [bobby](http://40.media.tumblr.com/e337b1fb98e4f27be30caf01df47db60/tumblr_nu7runANAs1s1o1sfo1_1280.jpg) | [junhwe](http://40.media.tumblr.com/c7cebd87c0adc81574e8f7b8ba424f85/tumblr_nucwpaifFR1u2go3io1_400.jpg) (pls don't ask me how i remembered this bc i honestly don't know lol)
> 
> feel free to yell at me in the comments or on twitter @[loverikonic](http://twitter.com/loverikonic)!!


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